Study finds diet soda may help prevent kidney stone

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Certain diet sodas may have the potential to prevent the most common type of kidney stone if new U.S. lab research is correct.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston found that the diet versions of several popular citrus-flavored sodas -- like 7Up, Sunkist and Sprite -- contained relatively high amounts of a compound called citrate.

Citrate is known to inhibit the formation of calcium oxalate stones, the most common form of kidney stone.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Urology, suggest that diet sodas could stand as an extra weapon for some people prone to forming kidney stones.

Kidney stones develop when the urine contains more crystal-forming substances -- such as calcium, uric acid and a compound called oxalate -- than can be diluted by the available fluid. Most kidney stones are calcium-based, usually in combination with oxalate.

One reason that certain people are prone to being "stone-formers" is that their urine contains relatively little citrate, explained researcher Dr. Brian Eisner, a urologist.

Potassium citrate supplements have long been a common treatment for preventing calcium oxalate stones, as well as another type of stone called uric acid stones, in people who are prone to them.

In a study 10 years ago, one of Eisner's fellow researchers found that a homemade lemonade concoction was effective at raising stone-formers' urine citrate levels.

Exactly how effective "lemonade therapy" is at preventing stones remains unclear, but some doctors do recommend it to patients, according to Eisner. The goal of the current study, he told Reuters Health, was to see whether any commercially available drinks had a similar citrate content as homemade lemonade.
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